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Movies need money. They can win hearts, minds and lay the ground for thousands of little websites like this one to talk about them, but ultimately they need someone with bags of cash behind the scenes. Netflix, proud owner of one thousand hours of original content among other things, just dumped some of their cash bags on a movie called The Other Side of the Wind. It was filmed by Orson Welles in the early ’70s, stared Susan Strasberg, John Huston and Peter Bogdanovich, and was never fully edited or released to a general audience.

Welles’ movie had been initially funded by a mysterious Spanish producer (rumored to be Andrés Vicente Gómez) who, in turn, embezzled the money. It was then funded by Mehdi Bushehri, brother of the Iranian Shah, whose assets were seized after the Shah was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution. Then

To Jeff Wells (Hollywood Elsewhere), Oscar punditry isn't about weighing stats or revisiting past kudos history. He's cinema's own Don Quixote, an idealist who's stunned and even a little bit offended if you dare to suggest that the Oscar race is more about politics and personalities than a noble quest to define the year's best films. That's what makes Jeff so much fun to chat with at this time of year. He gets emotionally invested. When he makes Oscar predictions, "I go with what I think the gods are telling me should happen and I just can't embrace statistical likelihoods," he says in our podcast chat (listen below) while referring to the kind of Oscar pundit clashes that Pete Hammond and I do. "All of that is very entertaining. I love posting it. You and Pete are my favorites, but I can't embrace it. " So where does he think the

Not so very long ago I had a co-worker who described himself as a movie geek, film fan, cinema addict, what have you. He talked about film as if he knew all about it. I asked him one day what he thought of Orson Welles. His reply?

“I don’t think about Orson Welles, he was old and fat, now he’s dead, what am I supposed to think about him?”

Needless to say I never really talked to this person again, who shall remain nameless. Of course the fact that he was an egocentric, arrogant, narcissistic weasel didn’t help matters. (He claimed to have a small part in Tombstone, I have seen that movie several times, never spotted him, by the way…)

I simply cannot fathom the arrogance of someone dismissing, so casually one of the greatest film makers who ever lived. I have been fascinated, obsessed even,

In 1963, Film Quarterly published an essay entitled “Circles and Squares.” It addressed the French auteur theory, introduced to America by The Village Voice’s Andrew Sarris. Auteurism holds that a film’s primary creator is its director; Sarris’s “Notes on the Auteur Theory” further distinguished auteurs as filmmakers with distinct, recurring styles. Challenging him was a California-based writer named Pauline Kael.

Kael attacked Sarris’s obsession with trivial links between filmmaker’s movies, whether repeated shots or thematic preoccupations. This led critics to overpraise directors’ lesser films, as when Jacques Rivette declared Howard Hawks’ Monkey Business a masterpiece. “It is an insult to an artist to praise his bad work along with his good; it indicates that you are incapable of judging either,” Kael wrote.

Orson Welles was ready to make a comeback with one last movie . with a movie about a director making a comeback with one last movie. It was called The Other Side of the Wind and Welles shot it with a number of actors, including John Huston, but it was never completed due to ongoing financial and legal battles. However, this might all change. A group of producers set up an Indiegogo account and are looking for donations to fund the editing and postproduction for The Other Side of the Wind. Welles completed principal photography, but died before he could finish this process. The legendary filmmaker behind such titles as Citizen Kane, Don Quixote and Touch of Evil attempted to fund the project himself. However, he eventually had to enlist a number of backers, with a number of them backing out. Welles took a number of acting gigs . television, commercials and

When you’re offered the chance to sit down with Robert Duvall for almost twenty minutes, you clear your schedule. Which is exactly what I did at this year’s SXSW. Duvall was in Austin to promote his latest directorial effort, Wild Horses, which he also wrote. The film stars Duvall, James Franco, Josh Hartnett, Luciana Duvall, and Adriana Barraza and it’s about a Texas Ranger that puts her life in jeopardy when she tries to prove a powerful family's involvement in a boy's 15-year-old disappearance and murder. Here’s the official synopsis: Texas Ranger Samantha Payne reopens a 15-year-old missing person case, and uncovers evidence that suggests that the boy was likely murdered on a ranch belonging to wealthy family man, Scott Briggs. When Scott’s estranged son unexpectedly returns home during the investigation, Samantha becomes even more convinced that the Briggs family was involved, and will stop

Chuck Workman’s latest bouquet to cinematic history, “Magician,” provides a solid overview of Orson Welles’ life and output. While little here will be news to cineastes, the mix of interviews and archival footage — particularly high-quality clips from the subject’s directorial features — should engage fans while providing a fine introduction for those whose knowledge doesn’t stretch beyond recognizing the words “Citizen Kane.” More a natural for ancillary formats (it’ll be a film-studies classroom perennial) than theatrical exposure, the documentary plans a theatrical launch on Dec. 12.

A straightforward, chronological approach in chaptered form starts with “1915-1941: The Boy Wonder,” charting Welles’ eccentric, transient childhood, and the thirst for artistic expression that led to adventuresome stage triumphs (like the all-black “Voodoo Macbeth”) in his early 20s. He also became a highly popular radio actor (notably as voice of “The Shadow” on that mystery serial), and it was in

You can always count on a few cinephile documentaries to show at the Telluride Film Festival. This year Chuck Workman will debut his newest film "Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles." Workman digs into Welles' oeuvre on the eve of his centenary, from his career as a Hollywood star and troubled director to his true identity as an independent filmmaker. "Magician" includes clips from almost every existing Welles film, from "Hearts of Age," which he shot in one day at age 18 to rare unfinished films "The Other Side of the Dream," "The Deep," and "Don Quixote" as well as some appearances on television and commercials. Also in the film are interviews with Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Richard Linklater ("Me and Orson Welles"), and of course, critic and filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich.

The release of any Terry Gilliam film is a big deal. More so than any living filmmaker of lauded repute, Gilliam’s work has been unusually burdened by outsized circumstances that render it astonishing that he’s even accomplished the work he has, from Universal’s re-cutting of Brazil to his lead actor dying during the production of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus to his doomed “Don Quixote” project, documented in the film Lost in La Mancha. Not since Orson Welles (who famously pursued his own uncompleted Quixote film) has a respected filmmaker had such an endlessly difficult time bringing his ideas to screen. That makes the announcement of a late summer release date for Gilliam’s newest feature, The Zero Theorem, all the more remarkable. The film looks like prime Gilliam territory, with its dystopic representation of a certain future burdened by blinding consumerism and Kafka-esque bureaucracy reminiscent of the director’s most notorious battle for

Terry Gilliam’s dream project, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, has been languishing in production limbo for years now. The closest the project came to fruition was in 2002, when it became the subject of the fascinating documentary Lost in La Mancha - a film largely concerned with the total failure of Gilliam to actually make a movie about Don Quixote. But reports continue to surface that the director is trying to resurrect his re-telling of the famous epic about a Spanish gentleman who imagines that he’s a romantic knight-errant.

Today, Variety (via The Playlist) reports that The Man Who Killed Don Quixote will start filming in early 2015, with casting now underway. This follows on the heels of a quiet indication that actor John Hurt might be in talks to play Don Quixote himself. Though Hurt is not yet confirmed, it’s a nice possibility and gives greater credence

For students of cinema, several films-that-were-never-made have been the subject of articles, books, and documentaries. Historians enjoy imagining just what movie delights almost happened, that were stopped by different circumstances, often budgetary. I recall seeing production art for Willis O’Brien’s teaming of titans in “King Kong Meets Frankenstein”. Before George Pal produced the definitive big screen version, Ray Harryhausen shot test footage for a proposed “War of the Worlds”. And animation buffs have wondered at the pencil test sequences Looney Tunes wildman Bob Clampett whipped up to try to sell MGM on a cartoon short series based on “John Carter of Mars”. And in this “what if” study, there would need to be a sizable sidebar on the unfilmed works of Orson Welles. Years before Coppola, Welles tried to adapt Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” for the movies along with comics’ “Batman” and “Don Quixote” (Terry Gilliam’s

In 1974, the Chilean-born filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky was coming off the dual successes of his films El Topo and The Holy Mountain. The former, a violent Spaghetti Western, pioneered the concept of the midnight movie in the U.S.; the latter was a surreal tale full of tarot-card imagery that was a huge box office hit in Europe. (Deacdes later, Kanye West would claim The Holy Mountain was the inspiration for the look of his Yeezus tour.) Sensing that Jodorowsky was not just an artist but a visionary, French producer and

Think silent films reached a high point with The Artist? The pre-sound era produced some of the most beautiful, arresting films ever made. From City Lights to Metropolis, Guardian and Observer critics pick the 10 best

City Lights was arguably the biggest risk of Charlie Chaplin's career: The Jazz Singer, released at the end of 1927, had seen sound take cinema by storm, but Chaplin resisted the change-up, preferring to continue in the silent tradition. In retrospect, this isn't so much the precious behaviour of a purist but the smart reaction of an experienced comedian; Chaplin's films rarely used intertitles anyway, and though it is technically "silent", City Lights is very mindful of it own self-composed score and keenly judged sound effects.

The same daredevil spirit that has informed many an apparently insane film or TV version over the past decade has seen adaptations of literary novels

When the Cannes film festival starts next week, William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, adapted and directed by James Franco, will be in the lineup. The Spider-Man star is known for mixing bookish projects with acting in blockbusters, but has nevertheless raised eyebrows by selecting a novel with 15 narrators that tells the seemingly uncinegenic story of a southern matriarch's death and burial.

The same daredevil spirit that has informed many an apparently insane film or TV version over the past decade has seen adaptations of literary novels

When the Cannes film festival starts next week, William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, adapted and directed by James Franco, will be in the lineup. The Spider-Man star is known for mixing bookish projects with acting in blockbusters, but has nevertheless raised eyebrows by selecting a novel with 15 narrators that tells the seemingly uncinegenic story of a southern matriarch's death and burial.

Legendary Spanish-born international film and music icon has died Sara Montiel, also known as either Sarita Montiel or, at times, Saritisima, was one of the Spanish-speaking world's biggest stars. She died on Monday, April 8, apparently of "natural causes" at her house in Madrid's district of Salamanca. She was 85 years old. Earlier today, a cortege driving through the streets of Madrid was attended (and applauded) by thousands of mourning fans. Montiel was born on March 10, 1928; according to online sources, her birth name was María Antonia Alejandra Vicenta Elpidia Isadora Abad Fernández; her father was a small farmer and her mother was beauty products salesperson. She left behind her poverty-stricken childhood, spending her days in the streets of her small village while dreaming of Spanish film star Imperio Argentina, after moving to Madrid in her mid-teens. Diction and singing lessons followed. Eventually, she started appearing in films, landing two roles in 1944 releases:

The film industry is a place for ideas but not all those ideas will reach the big screen. Many projects are announced each year and most of them will reach the pre-production stage but many will go no further. Only about half of the films announced will ever be completed. For various reasons, many intended movies will just fade away. Some may die during the script writing stage, while other will actually begin production before the whims of fortune cause the demise of the project. Here is Part One of a list of 25 tantalizing unmade films that could have been classics.

The film industry is a place for ideas but not all those ideas will reach the big screen. Many projects are announced each year and most of them will reach the pre-production stage but many will go no further. On average, only half of the films announced will ever be completed. For various reasons, many intended movies will just fade away. Some may die during the script writing stage, while other will actually begin production before the whims of fortune cause the demise of the project. Here is Part One of a list of 25 tantalizing unmade films that could have been classics.

The Adventures of Flash Gordon: In the mid-1970s, George Lucas was enjoying critical success from his American Graffiti films. Being a life-long science fiction fan, he was planning to make a big-Budget film version of Flash Gordon. He had many ideas for the film but he

Being a man of old-world sensibilities and traditional standing, Terry Gilliam has decided to send his pal Johnny Depp – who whisked his friend’s dream project out from under his feet, despite the fact that the Brazil director has been trying to make it for over a decade – a letter regarding the actor’s plans to mount his own Don Quixote film over at Disney. ‘Cause, like, hey, Johnny, weren’t you supposed to be making that movie together one day?

Interviewed on the red carpet at The British Independent Film Awards this weekend, Gilliam said: “It’s his horse. It’s not my horse. We’ll have to see where this one goes,” revealing a surprisingly indifferent response. Questioned on it again, though, he added: “We’re going to have to sort this one out. I was busy and then suddenly I saw it [the news]. I [wrote] him a letter, and

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